Beauty and the Beast

He talked about performing in high school musicals, about wanting to do Broadway long before he had joined NSYNC, and about finally having a gap in his schedule now that the group was on a break.

He even admitted that he considered auditioning for Beauty and the Beast before choosing Rent.

calling it cutting edge and saying that it was nice to have a chance to play a character and not just be myself.

That same day, Playbill ran its own announcement confirming Joey would be joining the cast of Rent on August 5th.

You could see some – Lion King.

Lion King, Beauty and the Beast.

Little Mermaid has been on Broadway.

Frozen has been on Broadway.

I was like, okay, like if you make me like I'll do the school play.

And so I did it, and I was LeFou in Beauty and the Beast.

And yeah, that was just kind of like a...

That was just like the start of my passion, I guess.

So I always was singing, but I didn't do my first musical till high school.

And I was like, it was Beauty and the Beast.

I was a spoon and a townsperson.

I was the townsperson that Belle sings, oh, isn't this amazing? And I was like, my God, I'm famous.

and then we just got to hear you sing even for a second thank you just a moment yeah um but i did beauty and the beast and after that show i was like well i'm never doing that again that sucked like like it was so boring because i wasn't a lead and a lot of the ensemble is only in moments and i was like sitting around i'm also like 13 14 at this time like I'm never doing this again.

And my teacher was like, just try again next year.

Like, please just try out.

The week before the lockdowns, Tay was competing in a middle school track meet, He'd never compete in another one after that.

Brennan had hopes of a lead role as Belle in her high school musical's production of Beauty and the Beast in the fall.

But that production would never happen.

So I don't know about you, but when I look back at that surreal couple of years, if I'm honest, for sure, it's like some kind of weird fever dream.

what shows were you in

I was in Beauty and the Beast.

I actually want to let you guess what my character was in Beauty and the Beast.

This is an exciting one.

Okay.

This is

like the most like Bushwick, like Brooklyn ass conversation.

We're like LeFou gender crossover, Beauty and the Beast.

So we had the usual three Broadway, what I would call the Broadway type shows.

So we had Believe and Beauty and the Beast.

So seize the day, seize the whatever.

Yeah.

Thank you for that, Jesse.

Down the line of firsts, I'll talk about my first audition for community theater, which was, I was eight years old and my sister had been practicing to audition for a local community theater's production of Beauty and the Beast.

And I didn't know that I, like my family didn't know that I was auditioning.

old enough to audition.

Yeah, I mean, the shows, a- after last time, and we went to every show last time and we loved them all, we were going to go to every show this time as well, even though we, we saw Believe on the, the last ship.

Um, so the Golden Mickeys and Beauty and the Beast were new to us, but we knew we'd be going to all of them because it had been such an important part of our experience last time.

Uh, we even tried sitting downstairs this time because we'd actually...

I think the last cruise we'd just, we'd gone upstairs the first time, and so we just ended up doing the same thing every other night.

We're gonna start with now that you have seen, uh, five different shows on Disney Cruise Line, 'cause you've seen Believe on both of the ships, as you mentioned.

Previously you saw Aladdin and Frozen.

Now you've seen Golden Mickeys and Beauty and the Beast.

So y- you have a lot to choose from now, Anna.